The value of deals announced reached $45 billion in the global Eamp;P sector during Q1 2011. A quarter in which the oil price broke through $100 per barrel on the back of increasing unrest in the North of Africa, and the world still clambered to get on board the movement towards shale resources. The total global upstream deal value of $45 billion is higher than all but three quarters over the past 3 years. That’s according to Evaluate Energy’s Global Mamp;A database (www.evaluateenergy.com) which tracks all global Eamp;P deals on a daily basis.

Shale Interest Drives North American Upstream Mamp;A
After taking a back seat to Latin America in Q3 2010, North America re-emerged as the key player in the global upstream Mamp;A sector with the majority of deals conducted there in the past two quarters. During Q1 2011 North America accounted for 45% of the deal value with over $20 billion worth of activity. Of this total 78% of the value came from shale resources. The largest shale deal during the quarter involved PetroChina entering the Canadian shale gas sector. PetroChina paid C$5.4 billion for a 50% interest in Encana’s Cutbank Ridge assets in the Montney...

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Evaluate Energy submits:The value of deals announced reached $45 billion in the global E&P sector during Q1 2011 -- a quarter in which the oil price broke through $100 per barrel on the back of increasing unrest in the North of Africa, and the world still clambered to get on board the movement towards shale resources. The total global upstream deal value of $45 billion is higher than all but three quarters over the past 3 years.

As the dust settles on an active year for mergers and acquisitions in the global Oil and Gas Eamp;P sector, Evaluate Energy looks forward to what kind of Oil amp; Gas Mamp;A trends may develop in the sector during 2011:
With only a modest growth in gas prices predicted, gas weighted assets are likely continue to change hands in the US at large discounts to equivalent liquids assets during 2011.
Smaller gas focused companies in the US may have to consolidate or risk being acquired by their larger peers who can afford to take a longer view on gas price projections
Shale plays in Europe may sta

Oil and gas deals in the Eamp;P sector reached $73 billion in the 4th quarter of 2010 with deals for the year totalling $238 billion, compared with $151 billion in 2009.
The total deal value in the last quarter of this year is second only to Q3 2010 in recent years, even outscoring Q4 2009 - a quarter that included ExxonMobil’s $41 billion acquisition of XTO Energy.

Encana Corp. will sell some natural gas gathering and compression facilities in British Columbia it owns jointly with a unit of Mitsubishi Corp to Veresen Midstream LP.
Encana said it would receive about $412-million from the sale and actual costs accrued in 2015.
The facilities include a 500-kilometer pipeline and compression facilities of 675 million cubic feet per day.
Veresen Midstream will provide gathering and compression services to Encana and Cutbank Ridge Partnership, its partnership with a Mitsubishi unit, for a fee.

The race to build natural gas export terminals on Canada’s Pacific Coast is inspiring another competition as producers including Painted Pony Petroleum Ltd. position themselves as potential takeover targets.
Developers of the gas-rich Montney shale that straddles Alberta and British Columbia are among the best-performing Canadian energy stocks this year, including Painted Pony, Crew Energy Inc. and Birchcliff Energy Ltd. Regulators estimate the Montney, the supply source closest to the sites of proposed LNG terminals, contains 145 years worth of Canadian gas consumption.

Sinopec Group wants to sell half of its two biggest shale gas acreages in Canada to spread costs and accelerate their development, as the Chinese energy company focuses increasingly on return of investment, an executive said.
A sale of an overseas asset would be a rare move for one of China’s state-owned energy companies, which have spent hundreds of billions of dollars investing in hydrocarbon resources from North America to Australia to secure China’s energy needs.

China has gone back to the drawing board on how to develop what could be the world’s largest shale gas reserves after attempts to stimulate investment and engineer an energy revolution brought little progress in the gas fields.
Beijing has struggled to find a way to emulate the frenetic exploration and production activity of the shale gas boom in the United States, and the latest setback makes reaching even a modest 2015 output target of 6.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) unlikely.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd.’s purchase of a stake in Israel’s largest natural gas deposit takes Asia-Pacific oil and gas acquisitions to a record US$99-billion this year, tying the U.S. for the first time.
Australia’s second-largest petroleum producer yesterday said it will pay partners including Noble Energy Inc. an initial US$696-million and as much as US$2.3-billion for part of the Leviathan field. Deals by U.S. energy companies have fallen 35% to US$98.7-billion in 2012, while Asia-Pacific purchases increased 3.8%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.